Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nyneve
Nyneve paused, holding Mordred’s fathomless gaze. For a moment, she thought she’d had him with her doe eyes and breathless request. She should have known better.
“Good,” she said, offering a dazzling and utterly contrived smile. “I appreciate knowing where we stand.” But she could not change the hungry dampness between her legs any more than she could pull back the bright flush of desire written clear all over her face.
She should hate him for the way he’d touched her, how he’d wielded her pleasure against her. And she did. Nyneve hated Mordred Pendragon—of that she was sure.
But she also wanted him so desperately that she could barely breathe.
“You said you were the last of the Tuatha de Danann,” Nyneve said as a distraction. “How is that possible? Danu left the Isles a thousand years ago.”
Nyneve had been around enough of the Fair Folk that she hadn’t doubted him back in the clearing when he’d first spoken the words, and she certainly didn’t doubt him now.
But here, under the faerie hill, his aura at rest instead of tightly closed up, it was obvious—horribly so—that Mordred was not like the rest of the Fair Folk there.
He stood taller than any High Fey she’d ever seen, and his features had an ancientness to them she was more likely to find staring into the face of a river goddess than dealing with faerie travelers passing through her remote village.
It was clear from the way his fellow Fey fought to engage his attention that he held his own court here.
She imagined this Court’s true king must not like that very much.
“I was made,” Mordred conceded, surprising her. “Not born.”
A chill went through her. The Tuatha de Danann were the first generation of the Fair Folk, the children of Danu, one of the most powerful goddesses Nyneve’s world had ever known.
Her mind raced. He could not have been made by Danu—he was too young—but she supposed a Fey forged by another divine power might be referred to by the same title in order to differentiate them from the second generation of Fey brought about by procreation, not a divine hand.
A bolt of realization made her sit up straight on the fur-draped bench. “Child of the Morrigan,” she murmured, tipping her chin up to look at him.
That got his attention. Mordred finally deigned to look back down at her, amusement moving across his features like a heat wave.
“I was wondering when you would piece it together,” he said, something like approval warming his usually frosty tone.
“Enjoy your revelations while you have them, little thief.”
Of course—if They even chose to let her go, neither Mordred nor the High Court would permit a mortal to remember her time under the hill. Disappointment simmered in her blood. She turned away from Mordred, looking out into the fete hall.
A gathering of Gentry watched with glee as three bespelled mortals savored a pile of rotting food as if it were a fine delicacy.
Two armored Fey fought to what was quite obviously the death in front of the dais at the far end of the hall.
Closer to the mouth of the chamber she sat within, two Fey tangled on the furs, either oblivious to everyone else or quite pleased by the onlookers.
“Is this it, then?” she wondered aloud. “Pleasure and violence? Thousands of years of culture and magic, and this is all the High Court of the Fair Folk can do?” Staring straight ahead at the menacing, bone-studded doors, she added, “Perhaps the Time of Men should prevail, after all.”
“I suppose mortals could carry on the tradition,” Mordred replied sourly, surprising her. “Pleasure and violence, as you say. But it is not truly violence, is it, if it is committed against creatures that are beneath you?”
“Who decides who is beneath who?” she asked in a soft voice, surprised at how easy it was to voice her true thoughts to Mordred, of all people.
“I am afraid it simply comes down to whoever is more capable of cruelty. And in that regard, our people may be evenly matched,” Mordred said, unfolding in an elegant motion to stand.
A beat too late, Nyneve noticed the courier had returned.
They said nothing, simply coming to stand before Mordred and raising one long, spindly finger to point toward those tall, narrow doors, which were now swung open wide.
Only darkness waited on the other side. The faerie knight offered her his hand as the bindings on her wrists and ankles released.
Nyneve took it, her heart beginning to race.
She could very easily become fodder for one of the fete’s cruel games.
And Mordred could turn on her in a moment—in fact, it was suspicious that he hadn’t just yet.
It would be so easy to dispose of her here.
She straightened her shoulders and found herself wishing for the full breadth of her magic, even though it would make her a monster. Perhaps the world needed more monsters in the shape of women.
“Have you dealt with the Gentry before?” Mordred asked as he led her toward the doors. “Not just the Fair Folk. The High. Noble-blooded.”
“Yes, a few times,” she replied, eyeing the two antlered guards that had appeared on either side of the doorway. “With my priestess. Avoid eye contact. Bow. Stay sharp. Be clever. Do not express gratitude.”
He paused, turning to appraise her, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. “Ragrshydan is a tyrant and a brute, and he happens to detest me,” he said in a whisper, surprising her. “I cannot protect you from his whims.”
“Understood,” Nyneve breathed. She glanced toward the High King’s chamber, only a few paces away, and realized that the tattered remains of a severed limb lay in the doorway.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Sir Oran’s hand pinned to her stairs, the blue-black fletching glimmering in the moonlight. “Suppose you cannot cut off his hand.”
“No,” Mordred said, turning to face her. His expression was sly. “But I can cut off his head. It is the traditional line of succession among my people.”
Standing there at the mouth of the High Fey King’s chambers, the darkness of Their magic pressing down on her, Nyneve understood all at once why Mordred so readily confessed that his own regent hated him.
Why the Fair Folk swarming him had seemed so on edge and desperate.
Why the servant had brought them straight to this tucked-away space.
Everyone in this entire hall, its earthen walls bursting at the seams with ancient power and endless magic, was terrified of the creature at her side, his hand open against the flat of her back.
She swallowed hard, her skin prickling, unable to stop herself from looking up at him.
“Ah,” Mordred said, arching one dark brow. “So now you understand.”
Before Nyneve could open her mouth, a herald announced the knight’s name, shattering her thoughts.
There had only been darkness beyond the doors to the throne room a few moments ago, but now a long, narrow chamber with impossibly high ceilings appeared, its walls lined with more antlered Fey.
Mordred strode forward, pulling her along with him, until they stood at the foot of a dais that appeared to be made entirely out of shimmering stone, strange shapes moving deep beneath the surface.
She fell into a curtsy to match Mordred’s low bow. She didn’t dare to raise her head, though she heard the heavy footfalls of the High King stepping down from his throne to stand before Mordred.
“Bring me tidings of Camelot,” the High King Ragrshydan commanded. “Did my little threat push them in the right direction?”
Her head still bowed, Nyneve watched as pale, battered boots with a strange stitching pattern came into her view. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears as she understood the High King of the Fair Folk was wearing shoes made of human skin. How dramatic. A bit excessive, if she were honest.
“Quite the opposite,” Mordred told the king, surprising Nyneve with the edge in his tone. “To make matters worse, Merlin is back.”
“Merlin,” Ragrshydan echoed. “Merlin is back?”
“I am afraid so,” Mordred replied as Nyneve stood there, mute as a dolly.
She only looked up when Ragrshydan paced away, glancing at Mordred in confusion.
Then she watched as the High King grabbed one of those broken humans, like the one who had offered her wine, and threw them to the ground, stabbing them repeatedly and shouting like a madman all the while.
Shock made her muscles go utterly still, her heart pounding so loud the sound of it filled her ears.
Only barely turning his head, Mordred’s gaze slid to hers.
To her surprise, there was sadness there—a deep well of sorrow that she recognized too easily.
Gritting her teeth, Nyneve cast her gaze back to the ground as Ragrshydan straightened his now-bloodied coat and stalked back toward Mordred.
“I should have sent more than an arrow,” the High King bellowed. Mordred did not flinch. “I should have sent the entire Host to ride down on them and tear that citadel limb from limb. But now I cannot, because Merlin has returned.”
“Our Court lived beside mortals for a millennium,” Mordred said, holding out his hands.
“They did not have iron!” Ragrshydan exclaimed, stabbing a long finger into Mordred’s chest. She felt the faerie knight’s weight shift as he straightened.
“They did not seek to make inroads into our lands, driving us beneath the ground in places they wanted to inhabit, taking our hills for their own.”
“I know,” Mordred replied, his tone softer now.
“You do not,” the High King spat, turning away from them again, the tails of his long coat trailing through the blood that spilled from the mortal’s body.
Rage swelled in Nyneve, but she shoved it back down as soon as it raised its head. Beyond the wards pressing down on her like a trap about to snap closed, this was a terrible place for anyone to think there might be something behind her ribs worth harvesting.